Weekend Recap

Yet another busy weekend in the *B* household! Friday was basically prepping for our busy weekend. And that left me very tired, so I went to bed early. Saturday, Russell watched the Husker game and I went to the grocery store. I would have rather watched the game, but I needed to go and that was the best time. Then we went to Nana Sandy's annual Halloween party. We could only stay for a little while because Russell had to work. The kids' costumes weren't 100% ready, so I had them wear the Thing 1 and Thing 2 outfits that Nana Sandy bought them at Walt Disney World last year. They were a hit! Jameson ended up steal someone's walkers and running around with it for a good portion of the evening.

Sunday, Russell came home from work, slept about 3 hours and then we met Nana Sandy, Papa Bruce, and Aunt Rachel for brunch. Rachel came home for the weekend and we met up for brunch before she went back to school. Then we went to the Spooktacular at the Zoo. It was a ZOO! It was crazy!! We met Russell's old partner, Marc, and his family there. Marc's wife, Katty, and I went last year and it was nothing like this! We think it was colder though. The guys ended up talking so much that the boys really didn't get that much candy. Oh well, I'm sure they'll make up for it next week! Then we went to NFM to see Graham Cracker. She got to show the kids off AND we got some free popcorn and plastic storage containers. They were having some sort of VIP event! After that, I went to my freezer dinner exchange. It was held at my friend Kellie's house. I just took Delilah with me because Nana Sandy took Jameson to watch the Millard North dance team. So, after the exchange, D and I chatted for a while with Kellie and Maddie. It was a lot of fun. But, by the time I got home, I was pretty tired, so it was an early night!

Oh and of course, I did not take any pictures! Sorry!!

Good morning, Sunshine!

This is what I saw this morning when I went to get D. I guess she figured out that she is able to pull herself up now!

Weekly Menu 10/24/10-10/30/10

(I'm trying this out - mostly for my benefit, but maybe it will give you some dinner ideas!)

Breakfast: Cereal, Oatmeal, Omelets, or Eggs & Toast
Snacks: Yogurt, Fruit, Graham Crackers, or Cheese & Crackers

Sunday
Lunch - Soup & Sandwiches, Fruit
Dinner - Chili, Salad, Cornbread

Monday
Lunch - Sloppy Joe's, Baked Sweet Potato Fries
Dinner - Pineapple Enchiladas (made with chicken and green peppers)

Tuesday
Lunch - Soup & Sandwiches
Dinner - Pork Chops, stuffing, and apples

Wednesday
Lunch - Leftovers or sandwiches
Dinner - Shepherds Pie

Thursday
Lunch - Thai Chicken Pizza (with Broccoli and homemade dough), salad
Dinner - Shredded Mexican Chicken (made with black beans and corn), tortillas

Friday
Lunch - Soup & Sandwiches
Dinner - Pulled Pork sandwiches

Saturday
Lunch - Out to eat
Dinner - Brats, Squash, Broccoli

That's our plan! Post your menus!

Enjoying one of those last few days outside...

It ended up being an absolutely beautiful Sunday! Of course, I overdressed the kids because I was freezing in the morning, but that's beside the point. This afternoon the kids and I visited our friends Lacey, Ryan, and their daughter Hayden. Hayden's twin brother, Rowan, passed away last year and they had a celebration to commemorate the completion of a pond in their backyard in honor of him. You can learn more about Rowan, his pond, and his family here.

Russell had drill this weekend, so he wasn't able to join us. But, he was home by the time we returned. Some neighbor kids were outside when we got home, so I decided that we should let the kids play outside for a bit before dinner. This time of year, you just never know how many nice days we have left until we are confined inside due to the cold!

Jameson had fun playing with the kids, but he may have trouble in a few years. There are 2 girls his age who live on our circle. He is always chasing them and trying to kiss them. He is quite the ladies man!

Delilah seemed to be getting a little bored, so I strapped her into the neighbor's wagon and started walking her around. But, of course, big brother wanted to help out. He just needed a couple of reminders to walk slowly and not to attempt to go up the curb. But the duo had a lot of fun walking around the circle!

8 months!

Time is going by so fast! Eight months already! I think I say this every month, but Delilah's personality is really coming out. She is our little comedienne at the dinner table. She loves a good game of "monkey-see, monkey-do." She likes to alternate between slapping her hand down on the tray of her highchair, looking straight up and then back down, and laying her head to the side. It is the funniest thing! She loves when we all imitate her and laugh with her!

She likes standing. Her new favorite toy is the activity table. She loves pushing the buttons and watching the lights. She does a little bit of stepping and bouncing in place when she's standing. It almost looks like she's dancing! She *can* pull herself up, but I'm not sure that she realizes that she can do it yet. I don't think it will be too long though.

She is still doing her low crawl. She will get up on her hands and knees, rock a little bit, and then collapse on her stomach and pull herself along. She also appears to be doing some yoga. She gets up on her feet with her hands on the floor in a downward-facing dog position. She also loves using the raking motion with her hand. Anything you put her hand on, she'll start raking her fingers back and forth. In fact, she has taken 3 keys off my laptop!

Delilah continues to be enamoured with her big brother. He can get her to laugh harder than her Daddy and I!! He is such a good helper with her...for the most part. :-) Jameson is always looking out for baby D. For example, when I'm leaving for work, I'll give everyone a kiss and Jameson will say "And baby kiss?".

Oh and Delilah has a 8 month birthday gift for herself - her front teeth! She's been working on them for a couple of days now. Poor baby, these teeth have been really hard on her.

10%!!!!!!!

In Weight Watchers, there are a series of small goals to achieve on the way to your ultimate goal. You get stickers for every 5lbs you lose and a big sticker for losing 5% of your starting weight. They hand these things out at the meetings and everyone claps for you, it's pretty motivating. However, one of the big goals is losing 10% of your starting weight. They tell us of all of the health benefits that a person will attain by losing 10%, including lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol, reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. Additionally, it's an achievable goal and will hopefully help keep you motivated to continue on your journey.

Well, guess what? As of today, I have lost 10%! And I'm feeling really good! In weight watchers, they give you a keyring to commemorate your achievement. And later on, they give you charms to keep on your keyring for other milestones.

So, in honor of losing 10%, I thought a progress picture was in order. I don't know why, but I never too a "before" picture. Maybe because I've taken so many before and never made it further than losing a couple of pounds. This picture was taken in November (actually, I think it was Thanksgiving) the year I had Jameson. I know it's not the best picture with the light behind me, but you can see how big I was.

Aaaaaaaand, here's my progress! It's funny because I was pretty disappointed when I saw this picture because I *feel* thinner than that. However, now that I look at it compared to another picture, I am looking pretty good - if I do say so myself!! :-) And I think it should be noted that the jeans I am wearing are an old pair of size 18 that I haven't worn since before I was pregnant with Jameson. (They probably are a little stretched out, but still!) Yay!

More changes around the *B* household!

This weekend Russell switched to the overnight shift. It should be feasible since I work part-time. He can sleep until lunch time, when I need to get ready for work. This way, we are not dependent on everyone to watch our kids and we're not driving them all over Omaha. Also, Jameson will have consistency so that we can work on potty-training soon. Russell is excited because he can watch football. So, overall we felt that it was in the best interest of everyone. Plus, we may actually get someone to watch the kids so we could have a date night once in a while!! :-)

So far, he's worked 3 nights. The first night went smoothly and the morning was pretty easy. But, Monday night was a little more difficult. Jameson was dead set on not sleeping in his bed. He laid in bed crying "Mom's bed" forever and he came downstairs a couple of times. I was so worried that he was going to wake Delilah up! I think he finally fell asleep around 10 or 11. Then he woke up around 2 am crying!! This really won't be that big of an issue, but I had to teach a class in the morning.

Last night was somewhere in the middle. He didn't want to go to bed (last night, he thought he was going to sleep on the couch!). But once I got him upstairs, he stayed in bed all night and didn't wake up until 7:30. For the record, on all three nights, D was the perfect sleeper that she usually is. :-)

This weekend we finally took the leap and got rid of cable. We've been talking about it forever, but postponed it for one reason or another. We decided to do it because the only thing we really watch that can't be watched online were the shows on HBO. And currently the shows we watch on HBO are on hiatus until summer 2011. It really doesn't make sense to pay $70-80 a month for "free" HBO. So, cable got the boot and we signed up for Netflix instead. We will evaluate getting cable back when our shows start up again. Or, maybe we'll just crash a friend's house that has cable (Hi Kellie!!).

This weekend the kids had the opportunity to see two sets of grandparents. Papa Terry and Grandma Onie ("Mama O") stopped over for a visit. Jameson had to show them just about every single toy of his. He also would run over to the door and point out Mama O's car. Delilah showed off her crawling skills. She also showed us that she could duck her head so she could crawl under the coffee table!

On Sunday, we all went over to Papa Bruce and Nana Sandy's ("Nanny") house. We visited for a while and then we ate dinner. The kids are growing up. Jameson sat in a booster seat so that Delilah can now sit in the highchair - which is the highchair Russell used when he was a baby. Jameson had to show Daddy where he now naps when he's over there (in Uncle Ben's room - which was Russell's bed before that). Delilah was again showing off her crawling skills. In fact, she tried to crawl OVER Nana Sandy!!

To round out visits with the local grandparents, Graham Cracker came over Wednesday night to watch the kids. But, she didn't actually SEE the kids. Russell's crew went out after work on Wednesday because that was the last day they were all working. I wanted to go as well, so my Mom came over and "watched the kids" so that I could go. The kids were already in bed and, thankfully, stayed there for her until we got home!

Oops, this got long! I'll try to be better about updating more frequently!

Define crawling...

Delilah has been trying to move for quite sometime now. She would stretch out her arms as far as they would reach. She would try to push her feet into the ground. And watch out - if she could find something to push off from with her feet, she could really launch herself. I've seen her up rocking on her hands and knees twice. So, I thought we still had a little bit of time before she would be racing around.

The other day, Russell called me into the room to show me that she was pushing off her toes to move herself. Well, today I set her on the ground near my feet and she evidently saw a toy across the room that she wanted because she took off! She wasn't up on her hands and knees, so I guess she's actually scooting? She's pushing off with her toes and pulling with her arms. But she was determined and made it the 10 feet across the room like it was nothing!! Way to go, baby girl!